Honecker Urged Invasion Of Poland

BERLIN — As the Solidarity labor union was gaining strength in Poland in 1980, East German Communist leader Erich Honecker urged his Warsaw Pact allies to invade Poland, secret documents released Friday show.

"According to information that we are receiving through various channels, counterrevolutionary forces are on a constant offensive in Poland," Honecker wrote in an appeal to the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, on Nov. 26, 1980.

"Any hesitation will mean death-the death of socialist Poland.

"Yesterday our collective measures might have been premature. Today they are necessary, but tomorrow they may be too late."

The letter and other documents detailing relations between Poland and East Germany between 1980 and 1982 were released by researchers at Berlin's Free University, who have access to secret archives of East Germany's Com- munist Party.

Minutes of an emergency Warsaw Pact meeting in Moscow on Dec. 5, 1980, suggest that Brezhnev was sympathetic to the call for military intervention but feared that it would upset moves toward better relations with the West.